A master optician sounds like some form of wizardry but that’s basically what Peter Thelin, master optician at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, is. He can make telescopes and microscopes and pretty much turn and shape and hand-polish any and all optical materials in his lab. It’s fun to hear him talk about his… »5/15/15 1:27am 5/15/15 1:27am

The microscopic world loves to deceive us. This image, for instance, looks like an icy landscape on an alien planet, but it’s actually a thin film of wax, sandwiched between two glass microscope slides and illuminated using linearly polarized light. »5/03/15 6:30pm 5/03/15 6:30pm

If you’re a non-magical being, you might think your chances of becoming invisible are slim to nil. But don’t jump to conclusions just yet: Researchers are now claiming to have developed a portable system that can make small objects, like your keys or pet lizard, disappear from sight. »5/03/15 2:00pm 5/03/15 2:00pm

The newest high-speed camera on the block won’t be making its way into Michael Bay’s hands anytime soon, but it will be making his ‘splosions look rather poky. See, this camera will be helping scientists watch atoms zoom around at 28,000 miles-per-second. »5/01/15 1:00am 5/01/15 1:00am

There's a truly monstrous camera at the "Churchill's Scientists" exhibition at London's Science Museum right now. The C4 Rotating Mirror High Speed Camera was developed at the end of World War II to study explosive reactions. »3/03/15 7:45pm 3/03/15 7:45pm

What you're looking at here is a major breakthrough. The image reveals a property of light that has never been witnessed before by human eyes, though we've long known about it. But at last, thanks in an ingenious imaging experiment, we can now see how light behaves as a wave and a particle at the same time. »3/02/15 8:00pm 3/02/15 8:00pm

Human flesh is opaque. As any good dictionary will tell you, that means it has the quality of "not transmitting light; being impenetrable to sight." Well, forget that: scientists now can use light to see inside objects that were traditionally off-limits to the human eye—including our bodies.»2/20/15 7:00am 2/20/15 7:00am

What do a butterfly's shimmering wings, a fish's opalescent scales, and a peacock's brilliant feathers have in common? Yes, their colors are beautifully iridescent. But they are also produced by the physical interaction of light with sophisticated nanoscale architecture that we are only just beginning to understand.»2/19/15 2:00pm 2/19/15 2:00pm

I've always enjoyed water-distribution puzzles. They are simple in structure and usually straightforwardly posed, but their plain presentation belies their challenging nature. Here are three classic variations on the theme to wrap your head around. »1/11/15 4:45pm 1/11/15 4:45pm

It's not very often that the fields of advanced photonics and installation art meet. But in Amsterdam this week, visitors to the city's Central Station are getting a look at what happens when liquid crystal optic technology is used to something completely unscientific: Make public art. »12/16/14 9:00am 12/16/14 9:00am

The passenger-side mirror of every modern car in America bears the same warning: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear." Ever wondered why? It's no design fault; it's actually a safety feature.»12/09/14 12:00pm 12/09/14 12:00pm

In the early days of personal computing—think UNIX early—text was often white or green on a black screen. That didn't last long, of course, but there's a little-known reason that those shadowy screens weren't ideal for users. And it has to do with your poor eyesight. »10/06/14 4:48pm 10/06/14 4:48pm

If walk through the square in front of the Flatiron Building this week, you'll see an odd sight: Someone with their head strapped into what looks like some sort of medieval brain control device. It's actually just Trevor or Ryan Oakes, artists (and twins) who invented a drawing tool that applies simple mathematics to… »5/28/14 4:00pm 5/28/14 4:00pm

Galileo is perhaps best known as the guy who proved Copernicus right about the sun sitting in the center of our solar system. But this proof would have been impossible without the improvements Galileo made to the telescope, which allowed him to see into the world beyond our planet like never before. And it turns out… »8/05/13 6:34pm 8/05/13 6:34pm

3D-printing is awesome, but it has its limits. For the time being, we mostly get static plastic figures, and while resolution is getting better all the time, we're far from a real replicator future. A new development is bringing us one step closer, however: printable optics. »10/06/12 4:00pm 10/06/12 4:00pm

Getting old isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, you get a hefty discount at the Country Kitchen Buffet. But you also suffer from stuff like age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a retinal disease that afflicts more than 10 million people a year in the US alone. There's hope for the eyes of America's elderly,… »9/24/12 11:30am 9/24/12 11:30am